Patrick Tyler tried his best to hold back his emotions. He sat just in a room looking over the Eccles Coliseum field — a field that had been taken over by a horde of purple-clad Weber State fans.

“I’m still trying to hold it all in now,” Tyler said, tears starting to form in his eyes, “knowing that I’ll never play again.”

On Saturday night, the greatest season in Thunderbird history came to an end in a 30-13 loss to Weber State in the second round of the FCS playoffs, ending the careers of SUU’s greatest senior class.

“(We’re) not where we wanted to be, but the seniors took us to a different level,” SUU head coach Demario Warren said. “It’s hard to see those guys leave. They meant so much for our program. It’s hard to say goodbye.”

There were a record number of people that got to say goodbye, though.

The night started out near perfect. The SUU community came out in record numbers, with 11,811 fans packing into Eccles Coliseum and the T-Birds gave them plenty to cheer for early.

Tyler led a 12-play, 75-yard drive that ended in a 16-yard touchdown by Jay Green. Then after forcing a quick Weber punt, SUU drove 71 yards for a field goal for an early 10-0 lead.

“We were worried about two things: Can we start fast and stay sharp after the bye and can we keep the urgency up if we did get off to a hot start,” Warren said.

In those first two drives, SUU gained 146 yards of offense. The T-Birds had just 73 the rest of the game. After the first quarter, Weber completely shut the SUU offense down and rallied past the T-Birds for the convincing win.

“They made a lot of plays,” Tyler said of Weber’s defense. “We didn't win one and ones. We just did a bad job all around. I missed some throws, we missed some blocks.”

Following the two opening drives, the T-Birds had nine straight drives where they failed to gain 10 yards.

“We gave up six sacks, that’s not really a recipe for success,” Warren said. “We couldn't get going with our tempo because we couldn’t get in front of the chains. It was difficult to move the football after they caught their breath. They had a good game plan.”

Even with the SUU offense struggling to move the ball, an opportunistic defense kept the T-Birds in the game. Taylor Nelson forced a fumble at the SUU 3-yard line, the T-Birds had a goal-line stand to force a field goal and Chance Bearnson intercepted the ball with less than a minute to go in the half that led to an SUU field goal and a 13-13 tie at halftime.

After the 10-0 start, Weber State outscored SUU 30-3 over the final three quarters. Weber QB Stefan Cantwell, who was knocked out in the first half of SUU’s win over Weber in October, threw for 299 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 105 yards and another score.

WSU receiver and former Dixie High standout Drew Batchelor finished with 98 yards and a TD for the Wildcats.

“They had a beat on us on defense, they got us information and just checked based on what our defense was doing,” Warren said. “They outcoached us and outplayed us tonight.”

It was a stinging defeat and a disappointing end to a historic season. The T-Birds won their second Big Sky title and earned the program’s first-ever national seed in the FCS playoffs. Saturday was also the program’s first home playoff game.

“I’m excited to see what this senior class will do after college,” Warren said. “Tight group of kids, it was very emotional in there and I couldn’t be prouder to be their head coach.”